Iris asks: '"Xena" I love the name...how was it chosen?'

Iris asked me what other names we'd considered before coming up with Xena, of which she'd said '"Xena"..I Love this name..was it chosen instantly..and by whom?'.

I was doing some housekeeping on my iPhone, and I came across names that we had considered well before the name "Xena", so here they are, for the record.  "Xena" was only chosen at the last minute; we had a bit of a palm-hits-the-forehead moment, as in "duh" what we thinking, not thinking of "Xena, the Warrior Princess", our son John's favourite program in the early years of his life.   And his Dad quite happy to watch along with him (just to give some "parental guidance", mind...).
So here are some of the names on our short-long list:

Ox
Fox

Hera

Matrix 

Xanthia

Phoenix

Siena Phoenix

Lady Phoenix

Theatrix

The Ax

Lynx

X 

But when we thought of "Xena", that was it, after all, we want the "Warrior Spirit", don't we?!  Not to mention the spirit of that lovely Kiwi, the rampaging Lucy Lawless.... See a great video of Drowning Pool's "Bodies" mashed with Xena, here.